The settlement approved by a federal judge in April permitted the Park Service to turn over the acre of land known as Sunrise Rock to a Veteran of Foreign Wars post in Barstow and the Veterans Home of California-Barstow in exchange for five acres of donated property elsewhere in the 1.6 million acre preserve, about a four-hour drive east of Los Angeles.

The donated land was owned by [Henry] Sandoz and his wife, Wanda, of Yucca Valley.

Sandoz has cared for the memorial as a promise to World War I veteran Riley Bembry, who with other shell-shocked vets went to the desert to help heal and erected a wooden cross on Sunrise Rock in 1934....

Sunrise Rock wasn't part of the Mojave National Preserve until 1994, putting the Christian symbol on public land. The ACLU brought its lawsuit in 2001.

The government came to the land with its existing memorial and religious symbol.

Then Sunrise Rock became part of the Mojave National Preserve in 1994, putting the Christian symbol on public land.

The American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit in 2001 on behalf of a retired Park Service employee who argued the cross was unconstitutional on government property because of the separation of church and state, and federal courts ordered it removed.

The government came to the memorial that existed before it was public land, yet...

The American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit in 2001 on behalf of a retired Park Service employee who argued the cross was unconstitutional on government property because of the separation of church and state, and federal courts ordered it removed.

The ACLU sometimes advocates for an unpopular viewpoint, but here the viewpoint is unpopular because it is so intolerant and wrong. It's a case of the religious left trying to force their opinion on the rest of us.....If you wish to win an argument about abortion, don't commence by arguing for the rights of rapists' embyros. If you wish to win an argument about church/state seperation, don't commence by arguing for the destruction of a hallowed cross in the middle of the desert.

If you drive through Cincinnati on I 75, you'll pass through the old West End, and going north, on your left you'll see an old convent, yellow brick, that now has the words "Jobs Corps" on it. I'm pretty sure that involves tax money, and maybe it's all tax-funded.

And yet, the old convent still has, at the apex of the roof, a cross. It's part of the building's design. It was entirely sensible to leave it there. It's part of the building, and whatever money it would cost to remove it could surely be better spent?

I've often wondered how it will be before the ACLU demands that cross--and all other religious imagery which those dastardly Christians who built that edifice deviously imbedded all over the structure--be effaced, eradicated, obliterated?

In this case, the cross--horrors!--must be removed, cast out, into the wilderness.

This is just another step in the drive of the secular world to destroy religion.

You must be prepared for the end of tax exempt status for religious institutions. The government is going to bring all them under it's control. The demand that they provide contraceptives and abortion is just one of the first steps. Soon any religion that does not conform to the dictates of the secular norms established by the government will lose it's tax exempt status.

They will have to go underground as they do in China. Or as it was in Rome.

It's a shame that a group in America calling itself the ACLU has a problem with religious expression.

Oh, it has no problem with religious expression. As long as that religious expression comes from their side of their beliefs. Hence, their marxism in the name of what they think is civil liberties. The ACLU is a long standing marxist organization. They always have been, they always will be. The fact that they sometimes take on tiny, minor 'conservative' cases of free speech is nothing but a marketing ploy. The rest of the time they are busy trying to dismantle the Constitution and one of their main thrusts is to attack Christianity wherever it may exist.

At a time when the anger abroad over the Innocence of Muslims video shows no signs of abating, President Obama gave an impassioned speech Tuesday at the United Nations that was a full-throated, unqualified defense of the American tradition of free expression.

"In any event, say what you will about the Innocence video—and folks should say lots—but it is clearly constitutionally protected speech. President Obama took a firm stand on the right side of the First Amendment this week, and may have reminded many overseas that American-style freedom of speech isn’t their enemy, and may even be their friend. He deserves much credit for this."

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